Backup ideas needed

[The_Librarian]

Hi Guys

So I need new ideas for the following :

Three locations need a backup solution for daily work documents and PST files.

Location 1 is where I'm at. This location will be the final repository for Locations 2 and 3.

Location 3 only need to store PST files locally for quick access (and a couple of daily work documents as well) but this backup need to replicate over to Location 1 one way transfer (so that deletions on their side will not happen on my side).

Location 2 also need to store PST files as well as financial databases and daily work documents, but this backup also need to replicate over to Location 1 one way only.

The reason for local storage on location 2 and 3 is that they can access their files quickly without having to wait for hours to transfer a 10Gb PST file.

On location 1 the backups arriving from locations 2 and 3 need to be consolidated on one backup storage (long-term storage) for easy retrieval should it be needed. Also, daily files will need to be stored and accessed as well.


Now - the issues I'm facing.

Top of the range stuff won't do, we're working on a tight budget. Stuff need to be functional.

Long distances to the other locations and unreliability of ADSL/telecomms lines make this an extra challenge. I'm thinking of using openVPN to create secure VPN tunnels between the three sites.

Obviously, due to costs, open source software is high on the priority list

So, let the ideas roll in. If you have any questions, or need more information, ask me.

Thanks

Ook

 

[agentrfr]

Depending on the bandwidth available, why not run everything as VMs at location 1? You can VPN in from the other locations and run the VMs through remote desktop or w/e you'd prefer. I realise if the net goes down either end you're buggered, but it should work much faster that way if everything is working correctly. That way you can back up from your VMs to some sort of node and RAID that.

FTTB at all locations should give you something like 99% uptime.

 

[TheMightyQuinn]

Hi Guys

So I need new ideas for the following :

Three locations need a backup solution for daily work documents and PST files.

Location 1 is where I'm at. This location will be the final repository for Locations 2 and 3.

Location 3 only need to store PST files locally for quick access (and a couple of daily work documents as well) but this backup need to replicate over to Location 1 one way transfer (so that deletions on their side will not happen on my side).

Location 2 also need to store PST files as well as financial databases and daily work documents, but this backup also need to replicate over to Location 1 one way only.

The reason for local storage on location 2 and 3 is that they can access their files quickly without having to wait for hours to transfer a 10Gb PST file.

On location 1 the backups arriving from locations 2 and 3 need to be consolidated on one backup storage (long-term storage) for easy retrieval should it be needed. Also, daily files will need to be stored and accessed as well.


Now - the issues I'm facing.

Top of the range stuff won't do, we're working on a tight budget. Stuff need to be functional.

Long distances to the other locations and unreliability of ADSL/telecomms lines make this an extra challenge. I'm thinking of using openVPN to create secure VPN tunnels between the three sites.

Obviously, due to costs, open source software is high on the priority list

So, let the ideas roll in. If you have any questions, or need more information, ask me.

Thanks

Ook

10Gb .pst's? Looking for trouble right there already.

For mail go Hosted Exchange.
Rest of stuff: Dropbox for Business

 

[bullzeye.za]

i use Crashplan for this sort of thing. The "free" version allows you to set up your own backup server. It does versioning to whatever spec you want ( Daily, hourly, etc ) and does differential backups as well.

Best free solution I've come across

 

[McGuywer]

I agree with MightyQuin.
Get rid of PSTs. There going to cause issues.

For the documents, any backup solution should work.
How big is the data without the PSTs?


PS. I think you are on the right track with BackupPC.

 

[The_Librarian]

FYI I want to keep it as simple as possible.

I dropped BackupPC as it have issues accessing Windows PC's shares. Also, a lot of faffing was required to get other backup methods to work with BackupPC, which I don't want as the potential for doing something wrong is there.

Had a look at urBackup - it is client/server based. Which is great, as I now have greater control over the clients, and I can see on the front-end which client have been backed up and which not, disk space consumed (in total and per client) and I can even drill down into individual backup sets to restore individual files/folders as needed.

You can also limit the number of concurrent clients, bandwidth and so on to optimize things if you've got an overloaded server.

You only need to install the client (with or without taskbar icon) and it'll search for and connect to the backup server automatically.

You can also restrict clients on what they can do (start/stop backups, view logs etc).

The commercial data (financial database) is almost 1Tb in size, user data ranges from 10Mb to 50Gb.

urBackup is able to backup open PST files. Luckily I'm not involved in fixing PST files, but will recommend that they look at other alternatives for PST files.